Anumakaar

I play internet lightning chess to sharpen myself for the real thing over the board, now that changes to public transport and other circumstances mean I hardly ever play in tournaments. My reactions have slowed with age enough that I usually want a break between games (which I tend to play as breaks in other things I’m doing anyway); therefore I dislike opponents thinking they have a divine right to an immediate rematch, as well as ones concealing their date of birth. People who repeat their username as if it were their real name I regard as dishonest and avoid as far as memory serves. I block people I notice let the clock run down tediously instead of resigning, or indulging in foulmouthed abuse either during or after a game; but I seldom find time to look at “chat” during a lightning game, let alone use it, and share Weary Willy’s feeling that disabling chat against an opponent who hasn’t abused it is rather offensive. I deplore the way some over-competitive players make free with reckless allegations of cheating; how the use of “engines” imagined by these egotists would be physically possible in the losses of connection for a few seconds which most of us frequently experience with Chess.com’s servers they never stop to explain. (It also appears to be the case that if you even to go to another part of the website to look up a player’s details, Chess.com signal that as a disconnection from the game.) But switching in July 2014 to mainly tournament play has had the unexpected benefit that I hardly ever encounter them any more.